Boats and Birds
by Celebnaur
Summary: Growing up calmly and simply almost always guarantees a complicated future, especially when the feelings you developed as a child for some girl nag you for well over a decade. Humanstuck AU EquAra with various sidepairs


Everyday they caused unrest. Every single day they managed to upstart a series of unnecessary and blatantly unwanted disturbances; one after the next reducing my disposition towards them until nothing was left but the pure desire and want for something terrible to befall them.

I would sit by the window, only a small portion of my head visible in the corner as I observed. They were loud, uncouth, and above all rude. Obscenities were traded like the conversation between a horse and its pasture; noisily, sloppily, and with someone (metaphorically of course) covered in defecation.

Vriska, the discourteous neighbor that continuously invited these impudents, was the one most oft subject to eliciting the undesirable words, but I never focused on her anyway. It was her guests that caught my passive rage whenever I was in a foul mood, which occurred more often than not. There was the happy, little dark-haired girl -Terezi I believe was her name- who was always the dragon in their ridiculous games of dungeons and dolts. Then there was the round-faced boy Vriska continuously mocked and jeered and punched. He had wavy brown hair in a limp mohawk, a style that stereotypically donned the strong-minded which was anything but what this child was. He was constantly tripping and toting around that fat cat of his. That last child was the one that annoyed me the most. She was the most poised, calm, and polite of the group and that is most likely what bothered me the most.

She was wearing her school uniform, having come from her school straight to Vriska's, and was easily the best dressed because of it. While the other three had slapped on t-shirts and shorts in all sizes and colors, she was wearing a nice white shirt with a red vest. The uniform's tan skirt came to her calves, and everyday she managed to not dirty it. My eyebrows raised as I watched Terezi run up to her.

Terezi was wearing a cloak with spikes going down the back and she held the corners to look like wings. She flapped her scrawny arms and the other girl fisted her hands beside her hips. In curiosity, my position switched from hiding in the corner of the window to kneeling with my arms on the sill. Her facial expression feigned anger and suddenly she raised her hands and quickly opened them. Terezi fell to the ground and overdramatically writhed.

"The fire magician has slain my dragon!" Vriska shouted from across the yard. The awkward boy was pretend sleeping beside her, one eye not very slyly open. "For that, I shall destroy her page!"

The girl gasped and leapt over the fallen Terezi, charging towards Vriska.

"Not another step, fire mage, or this sword goes straight through his belly."

Vriska chuckled and tapped the toy blade on his belly. He slowly opened both eyes, Vriska drawing in a breath for a monologue of demands. Before she could get a word out, though, he leapt up and kicked the sword out of her hand, running to the other girl. Vriska's face curled into a grimace, her blonde hair tightening in its ponytail as her freckles crinkled. "Don't think that just because you got your mediocre page back that I will be defeated, fire mage!"

The other girl slightly frowned in turn, her darker skin and eyes still remaining soft and untouched in the expression's delicacy.

"But today you shall be, pirate queen," she said, lifting her hands again like last time. A split-second later Vriska was clutching her chest and fell to her knees. After about five seconds of obnoxious grunts, her gaze drifted. In my direction.

"Oh my gosh, stop watching us!" she shouted up to me, causing me to spring up in shock. Terezi and the other two walked up next to her and looked up to me. In a panic I opened the window and shouted back.

"I was just going to tell you, that you are all very noisy! I am trying to build up here and you are breaking my focus!" Vriska rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

"Oh, c'mon, Equius, if you wanna play with us you know you can," Terezi stated with a toothy grin. The boy and his friend were whispering to each other. Terezi noticed me looking at them. "Oh yeah, I forgot you two don't go to our school; Tavros and Aradia, this is Equius."

We blinked at each other. The three of us just blinked.

"Hello, Equius. Is your name Latin?" the girl asked. Thanks to Terezi's inept acquainting I was unsure which one she was. She looked up to me with wide brown eyes and a soft smile.

"Um. Yes." I bit my lip. "I have to go."

And abruptly the next moment I shut the window and hid under it. On all fours, I hastily crawled to my bed. The pillow greeted my face, my fist met the mattress repeatedly, and a strange noise came from my mouth. It was as close to a frustrated grunt as it could get. I flung myself upwards and sat hunched over on the side of the bed.

"Vriska always has to try to make me look so odd," I muttered. "What if she... and the other two think I am weird now." At seven years of age, the reputation of 'weird' could be brutal. The last thing I needed was being known as that not only at my school (a job already well done by my neighbor), but what if now I was deemed as eccentric at the other two's school.

I jumped to my feet with my hands in fists again. The leather gloves I wore crinkled, a comforting sound.

"I need to build," I whispered. Since it was the mid afternoon on an October day, it had already gotten considerably darker since they had started playing. Good. The darkness seemed to help me focus on my building better and my best creations were spawn of me staying awake through Friday nights.

A ponytail holder was the first thing reached for so that I could messily pull up my shoulder length hair. My lips pulled into a line as I used the small mirror hanging next to my closet door to help me do this. I needed a shower. Exhaling through my nose, the hairs gathered in my hands and then were passed off into one. The ponytail was far from pretty, and most of the strands close to my face immediately fell out, but it would suffice.

"No."

I pulled it out and redid it, making sure it was neater and the oiliness not so obvious. A hum of satisfaction left my lips and then I was off to my workbench.

My father had gifted me a pair of thick, extremely dark sunglasses thinking that they would offer some protection from the sharp tools, flying bits, and occasional flame. It was thanks to me chipping several teeth that this concern had grown for my eyes' safety. The glasses made seeing things difficult at times, so I had several desk lamps to directly aim into whatever I was working on.

So for half an hour, my mind was occupied on how to execute a mechanical quadruped design. My creations were often small and did minimal, but that was understandable. I was seven, and what I knew about mechanics and robotics came from disassembling the toys and devices around the house.

I was told by my art teacher to look up some videos and advice on the internet, but the one time I did I got distracted by some online equestrian encyclopedia. I did a search for one particular breed and was brought to a site where an artist had made a cartoon rendition of this breed. The cartoon possessed very human like features and when my father glanced over my shoulder he screamed slightly and unplugged the computer from the wall and told me to never get on the internet again.

So I was left to learn about robotics on my own. I could have gone to the school library, but whenever I went I would somehow knock over a shelf, or step too loudly, or rip pages in the books. Eventually I just stopped liking books.

A knock on my bedroom door caused me to jump and quickly push my glasses onto the top of my head.

"Sir, dinner is ready if you are."

"I'll be down in a moment, Aurthour!" I shouted, herding the bits and pieces of the half-creation into a pile. After slamming my glasses onto the bench, I ran to the window one last time. Nobody was on Vriska's lawn anymore.

I sighed through my nose and the muscles in my shoulders loosened. Perhaps I would find out her name tomorrow.

* * *

AN: Oh wow hey, guys. This is that hamsteak fic I've been working on months and just got around to finishing the first chapter of. Yes it is Humanstuck, and if you have any questions on their appearances, feel free to ask and I shall tell you my headcanons and stuff. Hopefully I can finish up Appear and update my other two multichaps before the summer ends, but this is my fanfic priority at the moment. You do not understand how hard I ship this, guys.


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